[00:00.000 --> 00:02.640]  How about we don't burn anybody or anything?
[00:03.020 --> 00:04.880]  Instead, we can hold a radio drama.
[00:05.120 --> 00:12.080]  We could call it Uprising of the Downtrodden and hold it at Brooklyn Commons Performance Space on Thursday, September 17th.
[00:12.220 --> 00:17.280]  We'll do set decoration at 5 p.m., walk through the scenes at 6, and begin our drama at 7.
[00:17.580 --> 00:18.540]  Brooklyn Commons?
[00:18.780 --> 00:21.060]  Yeah, that's where WBAI Radio is.
[00:21.320 --> 00:23.220]  388 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.
[00:23.500 --> 00:27.320]  For more information, check out WBAI.org.
[00:32.760 --> 00:35.480]  And it's just about 7 o'clock.
[00:35.720 --> 00:39.940]  You're listening to radio station WBAI in New York.
[00:41.020 --> 00:42.200]  Time for Off the Hook.
[00:47.450 --> 00:51.950]  The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[00:52.910 --> 00:57.490]  I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
[00:58.190 --> 01:05.170]  We could much worse, a billy bump for the best, expect the worst.
[01:05.890 --> 01:08.730]  I hope that's understood, but make me know!
[02:34.000 --> 02:35.400]  And a very good evening to everybody.
[02:35.500 --> 02:36.320]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:36.400 --> 02:38.560]  Emmanuel Wilstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
[02:38.740 --> 02:39.980]  Joined tonight by Mike.
[02:40.160 --> 02:40.660]  Good evening.
[02:40.860 --> 02:41.100]  Kyle.
[02:41.620 --> 02:42.460]  Hi, everyone.
[02:42.960 --> 02:43.420]  Rob T.
[02:43.560 --> 02:43.980]  Firefly.
[02:44.220 --> 02:44.640]  Good evening.
[02:45.180 --> 02:46.580]  And Bernie S.
[02:48.420 --> 02:49.860]  Greetings from Philadelphia.
[02:49.860 --> 02:51.500]  I can't hear Kyle, by the way.
[02:51.680 --> 02:55.560]  Yeah, I couldn't hear him either, because somebody turned down the dial for Kyle's microphone.
[02:55.560 --> 02:57.660]  Okay, say hello again, Kyle.
[02:58.820 --> 02:59.800]  Hello, everyone.
[03:00.060 --> 03:02.740]  Yeah, he hit the microphone too, so definitely coming through now.
[03:03.400 --> 03:04.160]  Okay, great.
[03:04.160 --> 03:06.680]  And we have all kinds of important things to talk about.
[03:08.560 --> 03:15.140]  Including the big piece of news involving our particular adventure last week, which is now over.
[03:15.140 --> 03:16.660]  Well, it's sort of over.
[03:17.640 --> 03:26.920]  As you recall, we were talking about the ink splotch controversy, how Trunk Archive came after us, wanting $714 because we used an ink splotch that they thought was theirs.
[03:28.540 --> 03:30.200]  And you look very confused, Mike.
[03:30.200 --> 03:35.800]  There's a phone ringing somewhere around here, but it's not a phone our listeners can call us on, so I don't know what I'm hearing.
[03:36.000 --> 03:37.060]  Just get it out of your head.
[03:37.260 --> 03:43.560]  I hear all kinds of things that I'm trying to block out, and you just have to do that around this place.
[03:44.040 --> 03:54.780]  Yes, so, the ink splotch controversy where Trunk Archive came after us for using something that they didn't even control themselves.
[03:55.260 --> 04:02.500]  It was hilarious, it was an amazing story, but it's over now because they contacted us and said, we're not going to pursue this any further.
[04:02.700 --> 04:07.240]  Not much of a surprise, really, considering all the bad publicity they got as a result of that.
[04:07.620 --> 04:16.860]  Basically, they had a computer go through and search all kinds of images online, and match things up, and I heard that, I heard a beep.
[04:17.380 --> 04:18.740]  Is that the elevator arriving?
[04:18.860 --> 04:19.920]  Is that loud, really?
[04:20.080 --> 04:20.200]  I don't know.
[04:20.200 --> 04:21.240]  That we hear it dinging?
[04:22.000 --> 04:24.220]  I thought we were supposed to put such noises out of our minds.
[04:24.220 --> 04:26.260]  I never heard that one before, that's a new one.
[04:26.440 --> 04:34.200]  Anyway, so the whole thing is over, but it's not really over because they continue to operate with impunity.
[04:34.200 --> 04:44.340]  They continue to intimidate people, they continue to send out these letters to individuals who use bits of art under fair use.
[04:44.740 --> 04:55.020]  And in many, many cases, people feel the easiest thing to do is just pay up, otherwise they might have to invest in lawyers, or they might wind up having to pay a lot more.
[04:55.280 --> 04:59.580]  And it's really unfair and unhealthy.
[05:00.420 --> 05:09.840]  I like to think that by publicizing this last week, we got this practice out to a lot of other people that might not have known about it otherwise.
[05:10.540 --> 05:11.600]  The fight continues.
[05:11.600 --> 05:16.660]  We'll talk about it later on as well, maybe specific ways that you can get involved.
[05:16.780 --> 05:21.160]  But it's good that that's over, good that that particular little adventure is behind us.
[05:21.300 --> 05:23.020]  But I'm sure there are many more to come.
[05:24.280 --> 05:28.340]  And we'll be talking about those here on the radio as they happen.
[05:28.860 --> 05:29.580]  Bernie, any thoughts?
[05:32.060 --> 05:33.380]  Yes, there's some good news.
[05:34.260 --> 05:47.400]  Also on that front, there was a really good victory by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which we'll be talking about later in the show, in favor of fair use in these DMCA cases.
[05:47.420 --> 05:52.300]  So we'll explore this further, but there's two good pieces of news this week on that story.
[05:53.460 --> 05:53.980]  Okay.
[05:54.900 --> 06:00.900]  Anything else that we're not going to talk about later on in the show that people want to focus on?
[06:01.060 --> 06:03.740]  That's a very oddly phrased question.
[06:03.900 --> 06:04.220]  Okay.
[06:04.420 --> 06:08.640]  Well, I'll take your criticism, and that's how I'm going to get out of you.
[06:09.140 --> 06:10.540]  Next week is Maker Faire.
[06:11.100 --> 06:17.440]  Next weekend, once again, we will be in attendance with the 2600 van.
[06:17.680 --> 06:21.340]  And Maker Faire is in need of volunteers.
[06:21.340 --> 06:27.080]  So if you want to be a volunteer, first of all, this is one way you can attend Maker Faire for free.
[06:27.240 --> 06:33.660]  It's taking place in Queens at the Hall of Science, right where the World's Fair once took place.
[06:33.660 --> 06:51.720]  If you go to Maker Faire dot com, that's M-A-K-E-R-F-A-I-R-E dot com slash New York 2015, that's New dash York dash 2015, slash traveler dash program, you'll get all the details as to how you can participate.
[06:51.720 --> 06:54.220]  You can become a traveler.
[06:55.460 --> 07:05.020]  And basically, what that means is you volunteer for a couple of hours, and you get free admission to the festivities.
[07:05.020 --> 07:07.980]  It really is an incredible experience, Kyle.
[07:08.120 --> 07:09.380]  I know we've been there a couple of times.
[07:09.460 --> 07:11.180]  Actually, a bunch of times.
[07:11.900 --> 07:17.440]  Yeah, this will be our third or fourth year with the van and selling.
[07:17.520 --> 07:21.780]  Probably in the same location, if you've seen us there before, we'll probably be in the vicinity.
[07:22.180 --> 07:24.120]  And it is a lot of fun.
[07:24.240 --> 07:26.300]  We're planning... we're experienced now.
[07:26.440 --> 07:27.340]  We've been a couple of times.
[07:27.340 --> 07:29.360]  So we're planning all kinds of stuff.
[07:29.480 --> 07:42.660]  I think we'll have our regular soundscape blaring and all kinds of new merchandise and cool 2600-related things that we'll offer and share with everyone.
[07:42.920 --> 08:05.780]  And just in general, taking it all in will be a part of this incredible fair, which really is a unique event in the sense that it's sort of, I don't know, bringing back that old country fair feel or even like a medieval fair.
[08:06.000 --> 08:09.220]  But it's definitely injected with a lot of high tech.
[08:09.560 --> 08:11.880]  There's definitely some medieval aspects to it.
[08:11.940 --> 08:13.480]  I recognize that.
[08:13.800 --> 08:15.360]  Bernie, I know you've been to a couple of these things.
[08:17.180 --> 08:24.880]  Yeah, there's these folks that walk around in really retro technology gear.
[08:24.880 --> 08:26.240]  There's a certain genre for this.
[08:26.400 --> 08:27.720]  I bet Rob would remember the name of it.
[08:30.160 --> 08:31.520]  The name escapes me.
[08:31.640 --> 08:39.540]  But there's folks that are really into old-style technology and creating contraptions that look like Rube Goldberg things.
[08:39.680 --> 08:40.980]  So what's the name of that?
[08:41.040 --> 08:41.720]  Somebody help me.
[08:42.000 --> 08:47.860]  You're thinking of steampunk, I believe, where it's retro-looking sort of Jules Verne-era fantasy type stuff.
[08:47.980 --> 08:57.580]  There's also a lot of cyberpunk stuff where it's very futuristic and streamlined and all kinds of things, like all kinds of wearable things, all kinds of awesome creative things.
[08:58.940 --> 09:08.540]  It's definitely the coalescing of many different cultures and performing arts, scientific stuff, all of that kind of mashed into one.
[09:08.780 --> 09:14.280]  And you really can't expose yourself to a heck of a lot of interesting projects.
[09:15.060 --> 09:20.580]  You name it, you could probably find something around that area of interest and a lot of people excited about it, too.
[09:20.720 --> 09:25.240]  And Maker Faire takes place on the 26th and 27th, which is Saturday and Sunday.
[09:25.260 --> 09:27.980]  Not this Saturday and Sunday coming up, but the one after that.
[09:27.980 --> 09:31.860]  And as we mentioned, they are in need of volunteers.
[09:32.140 --> 09:33.400]  And if you volunteer...
[09:33.400 --> 09:37.400]  If you just volunteer for a four-hour shift, you get a day pass to Maker Faire.
[09:37.500 --> 09:38.120]  You get a T-shirt.
[09:38.140 --> 09:41.080]  You get a passport, a traveler passport.
[09:41.240 --> 09:42.620]  That sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?
[09:42.880 --> 09:47.560]  They have other perks for eight to ten-hour shifts and five-hour shifts and all kinds of things like that.
[09:47.560 --> 09:52.000]  But it's open to participation, all different age groups as well.
[09:52.140 --> 09:56.560]  Certain requirements if you're under a certain age, but you can still participate.
[09:57.120 --> 10:02.680]  Go to MakerFaire.com slash training-module-1 and you can start the whole process.
[10:03.040 --> 10:03.400]  Yes, Rob.
[10:03.700 --> 10:05.300]  Yeah, the whole event is just a very...
[10:05.300 --> 10:10.860]  It takes place pretty much where creativity and technology meet in all sorts of ways and all sorts of fashions.
[10:10.900 --> 10:12.120]  And I highly recommend it.
[10:12.360 --> 10:14.340]  Oh, and also we're going to be giving away tickets next week.
[10:14.580 --> 10:16.740]  So that's sort of a tradition we have around here.
[10:16.860 --> 10:17.120]  Excellent.
[10:17.560 --> 10:18.420]  And bring...
[10:18.420 --> 10:20.340]  You know, there's a whole lot to do.
[10:20.500 --> 10:21.120]  Bring the whole family.
[10:21.240 --> 10:29.340]  It is really family and huge age range represented and a lot of teaching and learning going on.
[10:29.480 --> 10:32.720]  And there's also plenty of concessions and stuff.
[10:32.800 --> 10:35.440]  If you need food or anything like that, you will be taken care of.
[10:35.560 --> 10:39.680]  This is amazing what they turn the Hall of Science into.
[10:40.060 --> 10:42.600]  Really just a massive hackerspace.
[10:42.600 --> 10:47.540]  What I find to be the most interesting part of all this is just all the kids running around.
[10:47.560 --> 10:51.220]  And being creative and building things and playing with things.
[10:51.600 --> 10:54.100]  And, you know, I don't think I have seen...
[10:54.100 --> 10:59.160]  I believe I said this before, but I don't think I've seen a single kid crying at Maker Faire ever.
[10:59.180 --> 11:00.060]  Not once.
[11:00.260 --> 11:04.360]  I've seen a couple of adults crying because their kids are just going too fast for them.
[11:04.480 --> 11:06.300]  But, no, the kids are really happy.
[11:06.460 --> 11:11.860]  They're running around being children as children often aren't in this country.
[11:11.860 --> 11:13.800]  And it's just really, really healthy to see.
[11:14.320 --> 11:17.740]  And it kind of leads into something else that I want to focus on.
[11:17.840 --> 11:18.820]  I'm sure we all want to focus on.
[11:18.920 --> 11:20.800]  And it's actually a headline today.
[11:20.920 --> 11:32.300]  And that's the kid in Texas, the name of Ahmed Mohammed, who is in the headlines because he had the audacity to come into school with a clock that he built.
[11:32.300 --> 11:42.020]  This is exactly the type of person who would come to Maker Faire, who would come to a HOPE conference, who is a maker, a hacker, whatever you want to call him.
[11:42.380 --> 11:47.360]  He's somebody that builds things, that is scientific.
[11:48.220 --> 11:50.300]  Well, unfortunately, he also happens to be Muslim.
[11:50.300 --> 12:04.940]  And in Texas, that is a hazard because when you show up with a device that you built, even if it is only a clock, and your skin happens to be brown, and your religion happens to be Muslim, all kinds of things hit the fan.
[12:04.940 --> 12:06.740]  And that's exactly what happened down there.
[12:07.100 --> 12:11.360]  School officials question Ahmed about the device, why he brought it to school.
[12:12.180 --> 12:17.120]  Ahmed was then handcuffed for his safety and for the safety of the officers.
[12:17.120 --> 12:19.020]  I don't know what that even means.
[12:19.020 --> 12:23.880]  He was taken to a juvenile detention center and then later released to his parents.
[12:24.160 --> 12:34.440]  The follow-up investigation, according to Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd, revealed the device apparently was a homemade experiment.
[12:34.720 --> 12:38.320]  And there's no evidence to support the perception he intended to create alarm.
[12:39.860 --> 12:41.520]  They had a news conference today.
[12:41.680 --> 12:43.220]  This was really kind of hilarious.
[12:45.700 --> 12:51.920]  He basically touted the outstanding relationship he's had with the Muslim community in Irvine, Irving, rather.
[12:52.320 --> 12:57.340]  He said he talked to members of the Muslim community this morning and plans to meet with Ahmed's father later today.
[12:57.860 --> 13:01.320]  At some point, Barack Obama got involved and invited the kid to the White House.
[13:02.560 --> 13:04.640]  And here's, of course, the million-dollar question.
[13:04.760 --> 13:10.440]  As if the teen's religious beliefs factored into his arrest, Boyd said the reaction would have been the same under any circumstances.
[13:10.440 --> 13:12.940]  Okay, show of hands, who here believes that?
[13:13.140 --> 13:15.740]  I don't see any hands, no hands at all.
[13:16.580 --> 13:17.160]  Go ahead.
[13:17.380 --> 13:29.980]  I don't believe it, but, I mean, this tendency for the police to overreact to everything, and, you know, especially when the children are not white Christians, is just insane.
[13:29.980 --> 13:31.880]  Look, I don't know anything about bombs.
[13:32.020 --> 13:37.020]  Unlike a lot of people that I know, like, I never built bombs for fun growing up.
[13:37.320 --> 13:42.380]  You know, plenty of people did and turned into perfectly happy, productive adults who never hurt anyone.
[13:42.560 --> 13:44.700]  But I, as it happens, didn't, whatever.
[13:45.020 --> 13:49.060]  But even I know that in order to build a bomb, you need, like, explosive material.
[13:49.060 --> 13:50.800]  You don't just have a circuit board by itself.
[13:50.800 --> 13:51.600]  That's not a bomb.
[13:51.760 --> 13:56.920]  Wait, you know people who built bombs as kids that grew up to be nice, happy, healthy adults?
[13:57.540 --> 13:58.880]  Did I miss that social group?
[13:58.880 --> 14:03.580]  People build, like, pipe bombs and other little, not like big bombs, but little things, little explodey things.
[14:03.700 --> 14:05.720]  You're talking about blowing up a firecracker or something like that?
[14:05.840 --> 14:07.040]  You don't really build that, though.
[14:07.160 --> 14:08.020]  You just sort of light that.
[14:08.140 --> 14:11.320]  Well, Bernie, you might know some people that experimented in this.
[14:11.380 --> 14:14.640]  It's not the end of the world if you're the right, you know, skin color and all this stuff.
[14:14.760 --> 14:14.980]  Uh-huh.
[14:15.540 --> 14:17.740]  Bernie, any thoughts on building explosives?
[14:20.000 --> 14:22.920]  You know, this used to be a time-honored tradition back in the day.
[14:22.920 --> 14:35.420]  You know, decades ago, I have a couple of uncles that used to like to blow things up safely, and I used to live in the countryside where people like to blow stumps out of the ground for fun, and, you know, no harm came from it.
[14:35.460 --> 14:37.940]  It was just good old playing around with physics.
[14:38.180 --> 14:38.920]  Nobody gets hurt.
[14:39.300 --> 14:44.460]  And, you know, that's just not accepted anymore, and it's a shame.
[14:44.460 --> 14:50.420]  I think that sort of thing builds respect for the loss of physics, frankly.
[14:50.420 --> 14:56.780]  But, you know, I'd like to ask anybody that would know the answer to this question.
[14:56.780 --> 15:16.380]  If designing, building, and demonstrating an electronic device like an LED clock constitutes protected speech, and also, at what point does the ignorance of poorly trained law enforcement officials no longer protect them and their agencies from civil rights violation lawsuits,
[15:16.380 --> 15:21.040]  under the good faith exception, after they arrest people who've done nothing wrong.
[15:21.300 --> 15:26.480]  Yeah, and, you know, we're talking about explosives, and I should point out, explosives have absolutely nothing to do with this story.
[15:26.800 --> 15:32.240]  We're only talking about that because, well, the people overreacted, basically brought that up.
[15:32.440 --> 15:34.080]  And we're talking about law enforcement.
[15:34.160 --> 15:35.100]  It's not just law enforcement.
[15:35.300 --> 15:37.400]  It's the teachers at the school, too.
[15:37.580 --> 15:45.920]  I think his English teacher is the one who called the cops, because they didn't understand just what it was he was doing, and they, of course, feared what he might be doing.
[15:46.780 --> 15:49.100]  And the fact that they didn't understand is key here.
[15:49.280 --> 16:01.720]  There's an actual quote in the article from one of the authority figures saying, it looks like a movie bomb, which, if anyone knows anything about bombs, you probably, one of those things you know is probably not that every bomb looks like a movie bomb.
[16:01.720 --> 16:09.580]  But, you know, this kid made a clock, a circuit board, some lights maybe, a display on it to tell you what time it was.
[16:09.760 --> 16:12.980]  And he brought it into school because he wanted to show his friends, his teachers, whoever.
[16:13.880 --> 16:17.220]  And that is something very precious to any budding nerd.
[16:17.620 --> 16:25.600]  If it weren't for my ability to tinker with stuff and show it off when it succeeded, you know, I wouldn't have half the technical ability I grew up to have.
[16:25.600 --> 16:43.080]  And the fact that this kid has been persecuted for it, dragged out in handcuffs in front of his friends, and basically had his name plastered all over the internet as this threat just because he happens to be both curious and brown, it's shameful.
[16:43.080 --> 16:43.940]  It's truly shameful.
[16:44.420 --> 16:44.900]  Absolutely.
[16:45.140 --> 16:53.620]  And, you know, one thing I'm kind of heartened by is looking at the mass media here, it's almost universally condemning what happened to this kid.
[16:53.780 --> 16:55.080]  I wasn't really expecting that.
[16:55.080 --> 16:59.640]  I was expecting to see a bunch of people saying, yeah, what are you expecting in this day and age?
[17:00.160 --> 17:01.060]  What was he thinking?
[17:01.140 --> 17:02.460]  Why is he building a clock in the first place?
[17:02.560 --> 17:03.180]  What's he really up to?
[17:03.360 --> 17:04.400]  I was expecting to see.
[17:04.480 --> 17:08.680]  I'm sure that's out there, but it's not out there nearly as dominantly as I feared.
[17:08.980 --> 17:24.500]  Yeah, I mean, definitely kudos to, I think it was the Dallas News who was the first to report this story and I think really set the tone for the future coverage, who had the good sense to notice that this story is completely absurd, had the good sense to not take the claims of the police and the school administrators seriously Obviously,
[17:24.600 --> 17:26.260]  because they are not serious claims.
[17:26.580 --> 17:34.400]  And I think we're in large part responsible for the tone of the coverage and the reaction of the public to follow.
[17:35.220 --> 17:35.660]  Yeah.
[17:35.820 --> 17:37.060]  And let's just go over that really quickly.
[17:37.180 --> 17:38.720]  And then we're going to move on here.
[17:39.340 --> 17:43.380]  Basically, Ahmed's clock was hardly his most elaborate creation.
[17:43.480 --> 17:47.880]  According to the story in the Dallas News, he said he threw it together in about 20 minutes before bedtime on Sunday.
[17:47.880 --> 17:54.700]  A circuit board and power supply wired to a digital display, all strapped inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front.
[17:54.860 --> 17:57.380]  He showed it to his engineering teacher first thing Monday morning.
[17:57.680 --> 17:59.620]  Didn't quite get the reaction he'd hoped for.
[17:59.720 --> 18:00.740]  He was like, that's really nice.
[18:00.740 --> 18:02.840]  I would advise you not to show it to any other teachers.
[18:03.260 --> 18:04.060]  So he knew.
[18:04.180 --> 18:06.140]  He knew right away this is not going to fly.
[18:06.320 --> 18:08.120]  This is the kind of attitude we have down here.
[18:08.720 --> 18:15.740]  He kept the clock inside a school bag in English class, but the teacher complained when the alarm beeped in the middle of a lesson.
[18:17.140 --> 18:17.500]  Yeah.
[18:17.920 --> 18:20.460]  Ahmed brought his invention up to show her afterward.
[18:20.740 --> 18:21.680]  She brought it on herself.
[18:21.820 --> 18:22.640]  She complained about it.
[18:22.920 --> 18:24.500]  She was like, it looks like a bomb.
[18:24.700 --> 18:27.200]  I told her it doesn't look like a bomb to me.
[18:27.960 --> 18:30.120]  And, you know, we're experts on bombs.
[18:30.320 --> 18:32.080]  People like us, you know, you might know that.
[18:32.860 --> 18:34.160]  The teacher kept the clock.
[18:34.380 --> 18:34.700]  Okay.
[18:34.720 --> 18:37.240]  If you thought it was a bomb, why in God's name would you keep it?
[18:37.460 --> 18:39.100]  You know, you throw it out the window or something.
[18:40.120 --> 18:40.660]  All right.
[18:40.740 --> 18:47.440]  When the principal and a police officer pulled Ahmed out of a sixth period, he suspected he wouldn't get it back.
[18:47.780 --> 18:51.280]  They led Ahmed into a room where four other police officers waited.
[18:51.420 --> 18:56.420]  He said an officer he'd never seen before leaned back in his chair and remarked, yep, that's who I thought it was.
[18:56.860 --> 18:59.260]  Now, just think about that statement right there.
[18:59.440 --> 19:05.900]  You know, a cop that he doesn't even know saying that because of the way this kid looks, that's the one he thought it was.
[19:05.900 --> 19:08.540]  That pretty much wraps up the whole story right there.
[19:08.820 --> 19:11.360]  Wait, they questioned the 14-year-old kid by himself?
[19:11.960 --> 19:14.080]  Well, there were three other cops there.
[19:14.220 --> 19:16.840]  But no, like, responsible adults?
[19:17.420 --> 19:20.120]  And I don't count the school staff as responsible here?
[19:20.420 --> 19:28.580]  With all the irresponsible things these people in Texas did, this doesn't surprise me that they would have a kid in there without legal representation of any sort.
[19:28.580 --> 19:34.300]  I mean, that's just, I mean, it's no, it's certainly less insane than a lot of other things they did.
[19:34.400 --> 19:38.560]  But this is, like, what I thought, a rule that police officers actually knew about and sometimes followed.
[19:38.600 --> 19:40.280]  I guess I was wrong there.
[19:40.280 --> 19:43.680]  It illustrates their level of carelessness pretty well.
[19:44.020 --> 19:47.020]  I mean, it's pretty inconsiderate the way they're handling it.
[19:47.060 --> 19:51.580]  This story has blown up like the bomb they feared they had under their noses.
[19:52.540 --> 19:57.500]  Ahmed felt suddenly conscious of his brown skin and his name, one of the most common in the Muslim religion.
[19:58.000 --> 19:59.700]  But the police kept him busy with questions.
[19:59.860 --> 20:04.100]  The bell rang at least twice, he said, while the officer searched his belongings and questioned his intentions.
[20:04.420 --> 20:07.540]  The principal threatened to expel him if he didn't make a written statement.
[20:08.100 --> 20:10.100]  They were like, so you tried to make a bomb?
[20:10.420 --> 20:12.520]  I told them, no, I was trying to make a clock.
[20:12.760 --> 20:14.980]  In fact, he succeeded in making a clock, I believe.
[20:15.440 --> 20:20.920]  He said, it looks like a movie bomb to me, which tells you the kind of movies they watch and the level of their intelligence.
[20:21.400 --> 20:25.640]  Ahmed never claimed his device was anything but a clock, said police spokesman James McClellan.
[20:25.640 --> 20:27.620]  And police have no reason to think it was dangerous.
[20:27.880 --> 20:30.900]  But they still didn't believe he was giving them the full story.
[20:31.020 --> 20:36.020]  They said that they thought he was pretending it was a bomb.
[20:36.140 --> 20:37.840]  They were the ones basically saying it was a bomb.
[20:37.920 --> 20:44.220]  But they were about to charge him with creating a hoax bomb, which is apparently a thing.
[20:45.260 --> 20:55.080]  Anyway, when the story blew up, as happens when stories like this blow up, reason kind of came in like the tide and swept all these idiots away.
[20:55.500 --> 20:56.860]  Well, they're still there, unfortunately.
[20:57.060 --> 21:01.520]  But he is being given the recognition he deserves.
[21:02.200 --> 21:04.320]  And hopefully his life will change for the better.
[21:04.460 --> 21:06.500]  We're laughing at this because there are so many funny elements.
[21:06.680 --> 21:11.900]  There's nothing funny about doing this to a kid, about traumatizing him and putting him through hell.
[21:11.900 --> 21:15.860]  And it can be the kind of thing that you don't get through.
[21:15.860 --> 21:17.040]  And it's up to us.
[21:17.180 --> 21:21.240]  It's up to people like us to make sure this doesn't happen in our community.
[21:21.740 --> 21:26.960]  And I think with healthy activities, it'll happen less.
[21:27.120 --> 21:27.300]  Rob?
[21:27.620 --> 21:28.040]  Yeah.
[21:28.280 --> 21:30.580]  Sanity did prevail in this particular case.
[21:30.700 --> 21:31.560]  And the kid was lucky.
[21:31.720 --> 21:39.500]  I first started seeing, you know, ridiculous, you know, reactions to how ridiculous this was coming from people in the hacker communities, people in the maker communities.
[21:39.500 --> 21:41.440]  But it began to spread to the mainstream.
[21:42.060 --> 21:44.560]  He got a nice tweet from, I understand, Hillary Clinton.
[21:44.760 --> 21:45.720]  The president tweeted at him.
[21:46.100 --> 21:50.500]  The Raspberry Pi Foundation tweeted at him saying, you know, we have some scary looking hardware we'd like to send you.
[21:51.200 --> 21:55.180]  There was a hashtag called I Stand with Ahmed on Twitter.
[21:55.180 --> 22:00.080]  And people were posting pictures of themselves with wall clocks and things going, how scary am I now?
[22:00.920 --> 22:06.360]  But his family actually ended up starting a Twitter for him, just because that's where a lot of this reaction was.
[22:06.480 --> 22:09.900]  So the Twitter account, if you're interested in following them, is I Stand with Ahmed.
[22:10.160 --> 22:12.000]  That's I Stand with A-H-M-E-D.
[22:12.640 --> 22:16.880]  There's going to be a lot more wall clocks being made in the next few weeks, I think.
[22:16.980 --> 22:20.700]  And I'm sure Ahmed will be teaching people exactly how to do that.
[22:20.820 --> 22:21.840]  So, wow.
[22:21.840 --> 22:29.640]  Joining us now on the phone is Senior Staff Attorney for Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mitch Stoltz.
[22:29.700 --> 22:30.260]  Mitch, are you there?
[22:32.180 --> 22:32.920]  I'm here.
[22:33.060 --> 22:33.420]  Good evening.
[22:34.100 --> 22:36.960]  You've been listening in on some of this conversation here.
[22:37.080 --> 22:39.000]  Does any of this surprise you?
[22:41.480 --> 22:43.320]  I can't say that it does, sadly.
[22:43.320 --> 23:11.260]  Neither the apparent targeting of maybe a child named Mohammed or the sort of deep and sort of scary misunderstanding of a love for tinkering and the purposes of a piece of technology.
[23:11.260 --> 23:29.280]  The first thing that the police or school administrators would jump to would be something that they saw in a movie, rather than, say, something that they saw at the local hackerspace or in a book of projects that Ahmed and others might have been following.
[23:30.320 --> 23:31.960]  That's a very good point.
[23:32.300 --> 23:35.460]  Their frame of reference is so limited.
[23:35.460 --> 23:53.300]  It's limited to mass media and second-rate entertainment, and that's basically what they make their decisions based upon, rather than actually learning something themselves, going down, as you say, to hackerspaces and figuring out what people are actually doing,
[23:53.440 --> 23:56.820]  the constructive things, maybe learning a bit about technology themselves.
[23:58.100 --> 24:00.600]  That would definitely make a huge difference, don't you think?
[24:03.140 --> 24:03.800]  I do.
[24:04.120 --> 24:21.140]  And that's, you know, I think, a challenge for a lot of us is to, you know, educate mainstream culture and sort of help maybe dissolve that fear and not have that be the people's, you know, people's first conclusions.
[24:23.520 --> 24:23.960]  Absolutely.
[24:24.280 --> 24:24.900]  Yes, go ahead, Bernie.
[24:26.680 --> 24:32.440]  I just wanted to say to the police officer who arrested this 14-year-old kid for bringing an LED clock...
[24:32.440 --> 24:33.000]  Is he with us?
[24:33.140 --> 24:34.920]  ...to school and said it looks like...
[24:34.920 --> 24:54.140]  No, no, I just want to say, if he's listening, I would like to say to everybody who knows him and him himself, when you said it looks like a movie bomb, I think this cop looks like a movie cop, as in those Keystone cop movies where the cops are just complete idiots and don't know what they're doing.
[24:54.140 --> 24:55.860]  And that's what he looks like to me.
[24:57.320 --> 25:03.160]  Well, hopefully he's listening and has heard that particular little critique there and will respond in kind.
[25:03.900 --> 25:09.080]  But, Mitch, we have something of yours to talk about.
[25:09.080 --> 25:15.360]  I understand that there was a big win for fair use that the Electronic Frontier Foundation was in the middle of this week.
[25:18.040 --> 25:18.820]  That's right.
[25:19.080 --> 25:32.600]  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals out here in San Francisco, that's the federal appeals court for a lot of the far western states, ruled yesterday in a case that we've been working on for eight years, and that's the Lens vs.
[25:32.760 --> 25:36.220]  Universal Music, or better known as the Dancing Baby case.
[25:37.300 --> 25:42.080]  Yeah, now, could you tell us what exactly the Dancing Baby is all about?
[25:44.660 --> 25:45.260]  Sure.
[25:45.420 --> 25:58.940]  So this was a mom, Stephanie Lens, who posted a short video on YouTube back in 2007 of her two small children dancing on the kitchen floor.
[25:59.160 --> 26:02.700]  And in the background, you hear playing the song Let's Go Crazy by Prince.
[26:03.500 --> 26:14.000]  Universal Music, which at the time was Prince's record label, sent a takedown notice to YouTube and asked them to take that down, accusing it of being a copyright infringement.
[26:14.320 --> 26:21.520]  Now, Ms. Lens had put the video up there mainly to show her family, so a little video of her children.
[26:22.180 --> 26:42.820]  It was public, and it had the music in it, but it was pretty obviously not a full reproduction of the song, or a very high-quality reproduction of the song, or a place that anyone would go just to hear the song and avoid paying for it.
[26:43.040 --> 26:49.840]  Those were all pretty obvious to the average observer, which means that the video was fair use.
[26:49.980 --> 27:05.440]  It means that it's something that falls into the broad, a flexible exclusion from copyright law, which is vitally important to all communication on the Internet, because everything...
[27:06.150 --> 27:14.360]  I won't say everything, but nearly everything on the Internet, anything that's the slightest bit creative, is probably automatically copyrighted.
[27:14.460 --> 27:18.200]  This is an important point to remember, is copyright is automatic.
[27:18.200 --> 27:22.420]  It doesn't require registration or an application.
[27:22.420 --> 27:33.680]  It applies automatically to any creative work, and that means that almost any transmission of creative work is...
[27:34.440 --> 27:38.860]  except for the fair use doctrine, it's nominally copyright infringement.
[27:39.080 --> 27:49.820]  Fair use is really important, and so it's really important that people take it into account before they sort of let fly with accusations of copyright infringement.
[27:49.820 --> 27:52.380]  The accusations are powerful because they're easy, right?
[27:52.480 --> 28:13.000]  The Digital Millennium Copyright Act sets up this procedure that YouTube and many other content platforms follow, where you basically fill out a web form or send an email and the platform is saying, you know, this material is copyright infringing, and the platform will take it down because that protects them against lawsuits.
[28:14.380 --> 28:19.300]  It's very easy, and that means it's very easy to abuse.
[28:20.400 --> 28:35.880]  Ms. Lenz, and with EFF and some others acting as her legal team, filed suit against Universal Music, saying that they misused the DMCA when they took down her video.
[28:35.880 --> 28:45.680]  So they should have taken a look at the video and concluded that it was fair use, and they should have incorporated fair use into their process.
[28:45.960 --> 28:57.940]  Now, the appeals court yesterday, and this has been a long time coming, the appeals court said, yes, before you send takedown notices, you have to consider fair use.
[28:58.700 --> 28:59.220]  Good.
[29:00.000 --> 29:01.980]  They had not been doing that before.
[29:05.620 --> 29:06.860]  No, that wasn't...
[29:06.860 --> 29:07.760]  It wasn't clear.
[29:08.020 --> 29:13.360]  There was a lower court decision that was a bit equivocal on that point.
[29:13.480 --> 29:22.640]  But on appeal, the appeals court said very unequivocally, you know, there are...
[29:22.640 --> 29:23.940]  Now, fair use can be tricky.
[29:24.500 --> 29:28.820]  There are difficult cases whether something is fair use or not.
[29:29.320 --> 29:30.740]  There are also easy cases.
[29:30.740 --> 29:32.040]  We think this was an easy case.
[29:33.540 --> 29:38.520]  But either you're hard, you have to think about it before you fire off a takedown notice.
[29:39.760 --> 29:47.360]  Now, Mitch, one thing that we've seen is that a lot of these takedown notices are sent not by humans at all, but by robots.
[29:47.600 --> 29:54.520]  And they don't even, let alone consider fair use, they oftentimes don't even actually identify the work in question correctly.
[29:55.680 --> 30:00.760]  Are there going to be any penalties for entities that violate this procedure?
[30:04.050 --> 30:05.750]  So the law provides for a penalty.
[30:05.910 --> 30:21.910]  And this case was really about what, you know, how much does a company like that, a content company, or a sort of a DMCA or agent company, or one of these groups, how much do they have to do?
[30:22.070 --> 30:27.050]  And the court did say, you know, we're not outlawing robo-takedowns.
[30:27.050 --> 30:31.870]  but they have to consider fair use somehow.
[30:33.250 --> 30:40.750]  That probably means, that certainly means that there needs to be some human review in the close cases.
[30:41.310 --> 30:55.390]  You know, if it's, you know, a complete verbatim copy of a music video off of, you know, an artist's website or something like that.
[30:57.650 --> 31:02.950]  Probably, you know, that's likely infringing, you know, absent some other evidence of fair use.
[31:03.490 --> 31:05.470]  So, that may be an easy case.
[31:05.610 --> 31:10.130]  And, you know, a few seconds in the background of something, that's also an easy case.
[31:10.290 --> 31:14.430]  This was an easy case, a family video, a video of a toddler, easy case.
[31:16.230 --> 31:21.650]  those, you know, one way or another, they may not require that much human review.
[31:22.630 --> 31:25.390]  Close cases are going to, and they're going to have to make a judgment call.
[31:25.430 --> 31:32.450]  And the court said, you know, companies like Universal Music can make judgment calls, but they have to put in the effort.
[31:33.610 --> 31:37.450]  Now, you said it's an easy case, but this has been going on for eight years now.
[31:37.510 --> 31:39.810]  That baby's probably almost a teenager now.
[31:43.550 --> 31:45.630]  Yeah, that's the nature of litigation.
[31:45.930 --> 31:49.630]  It's been through many twists and turns, and the case is not over.
[31:50.650 --> 31:53.570]  There's really kind of a number of places it might go from here.
[31:54.610 --> 32:04.150]  But that was, you know, I think all sides saw this as an important issue and an issue going far beyond, you know, a mom and her toddler.
[32:04.990 --> 32:10.210]  This really has implications for misusing copyright for censorship.
[32:10.590 --> 32:13.390]  This has implications for political videos.
[32:13.950 --> 32:24.270]  and remix videos and journalism and all sorts of things where copyright claims make a really easy way to make something disappear, at least temporarily.
[32:24.270 --> 32:31.650]  It's tempting to do that against, say, sharp political commentary in the middle of a campaign.
[32:32.110 --> 32:43.070]  Send, you know, fill out one web form and the video will disappear for a minimum of two weeks, which could be, you know, really damaging if it's in the middle of a political campaign.
[32:43.450 --> 32:43.830]  Yeah, absolutely.
[32:44.470 --> 32:45.470]  Bernie, I believe you had a question?
[32:45.750 --> 32:46.950]  This will...
[32:50.360 --> 32:51.700]  Sorry, we have a delay here.
[32:52.040 --> 32:53.100]  Bernie, did you have a question?
[32:55.820 --> 32:56.340]  Yeah.
[32:56.800 --> 33:22.000]  Mitch, what would happen if a similar case arose now in the Ninth Circuit, a so-called easy case like you decided, and a company like Universal Music or some other big copyright behemoth, if they just sent a threat or a takedown notice and completely ignored the obvious fair use implications,
[33:24.320 --> 33:26.380]  what would happen to them?
[33:26.400 --> 33:29.800]  Or would they just be able to do it again with impunity?
[33:31.660 --> 33:35.700]  Well, they could be sued for damages, and that's what this case was about.
[33:35.700 --> 33:38.300]  Now, it's still not...
[33:38.300 --> 33:41.320]  it hasn't been determined yet what those damages are in this case.
[33:42.880 --> 33:52.440]  The court said that this could be nominal damages, which is essentially a small fine that vindicates someone's rights.
[33:53.760 --> 34:10.300]  But in some cases, you know, for example, in the example I gave of maybe a political video done at a critical time, like there may be actual money harm involved, in which case a company that's sending a careless takedown notice, like there's a malicious takedown notice,
[34:10.500 --> 34:14.340]  really, could actually be liable for significant money damages.
[34:15.200 --> 34:30.720]  Mitch, I had a question about just how many cases like this, from your perspective, you think maybe would be affected or are being currently looked at right now, and what is the impact of the ruling against this kind of flawed logic?
[34:31.440 --> 34:33.940]  What's that going to be in the short term here?
[34:33.940 --> 34:35.480]  Is that going to affect a lot of cases?
[34:38.720 --> 34:41.760]  This issue actually doesn't go to court very much.
[34:41.940 --> 34:59.220]  There's actually very few cases, you know, as far as actual court decisions about this, which is part of why this case has taken so long and really just been such a sort of deep and involved case was because it's treading a lot of new ground.
[34:59.220 --> 35:08.240]  where this law and where this principle really has an effect is not so much in court.
[35:08.460 --> 35:19.300]  It's in the everyday decisions of the major entertainment companies and content platforms and users.
[35:20.000 --> 35:40.240]  Knowing what the rules are, hopefully people will be less afraid to post their personal expression that might use pieces of other people's work in a fair use way, a creative or critical way, or educational way.
[35:40.380 --> 35:42.300]  There's various flavors of fair use.
[35:43.640 --> 36:02.740]  And hopefully, and this is, I think, really what will happen, is that the in-house lawyers at places like Universal Music and the movie studios, the folks who are really sending out millions of takedown notices are going to overhaul their procedures a little bit.
[36:02.840 --> 36:04.500]  And they're going to keep using software, right?
[36:04.580 --> 36:09.700]  There's still going to be automated scanning, there's going to be takedown bots, right?
[36:10.780 --> 36:15.780]  But I think they're going to use a bit more human review now, and that's going to make a big difference.
[36:16.060 --> 36:25.780]  Yeah, and in addition to that kind of social attitude that it works to kind of educate and evangelize actually a healthy thought process around this, that's fantastic.
[36:26.200 --> 36:34.140]  Yeah, I had a question, Mitch, you mentioned YouTube videos and various ways that things get shut down.
[36:34.280 --> 36:35.880]  How does that technology work?
[36:36.180 --> 36:43.800]  I've asked many people, and no one really seems to know how they're able to keep such a massive database of audio and video.
[36:43.980 --> 36:48.160]  Many times, audio and video that's not even available anyplace else.
[36:48.320 --> 36:59.860]  For instance, you take something off an old TV program, and all of a sudden, YouTube instantly flags it as being a copyright violation, but yet you cannot find that anyplace else.
[37:00.100 --> 37:08.380]  Is there some kind of online library that no one else has access to where all these things are just stored and compared?
[37:11.400 --> 37:13.480]  YouTube is a special case here.
[37:14.580 --> 37:17.240]  This is not the case with every content platform.
[37:18.680 --> 37:21.300]  And we don't know exactly how it works.
[37:21.300 --> 37:23.700]  we have a general idea of it.
[37:23.840 --> 37:28.280]  Obviously, it's drawing on quite a lot of Google technology.
[37:30.040 --> 37:46.560]  YouTube system is called Content ID, and it does involve a giant database of content, or I guess it's probably hashes or fingerprints of content from major content companies.
[37:46.560 --> 37:50.540]  We're talking major record labels and major TV and movie producers.
[37:50.540 --> 37:52.380]  probably less so with independents.
[37:52.520 --> 37:54.380]  They may or may not be in that database.
[37:54.580 --> 37:55.820]  So it doesn't cover the world.
[37:56.000 --> 38:05.280]  It covers sort of high-profile corporate entertainment distributors.
[38:06.180 --> 38:21.720]  Somehow, yes, they're searching, and it's hard to know the details, they're searching all the uploaded video and comparing it against this database content hashes.
[38:23.100 --> 38:28.140]  And I think in many cases, if they find a match, they don't necessarily take it down right away.
[38:28.280 --> 38:42.980]  Sometimes they'll offer to monetize it, or they'll offer to essentially broker a deal between the uploader and the rights holder, or just run ads over it if that's what the rights holder wants.
[38:43.820 --> 38:58.360]  it would actually be pretty unfortunate if the YouTube content ID system got enshrined as the gold standard for how user-generated content platforms could work, because none of the rest of them have the resources of Google.
[38:59.340 --> 39:01.720]  Most of them can't afford the resources of Google.
[39:01.720 --> 39:06.980]  and if it were to be...
[39:06.980 --> 39:24.640]  if the rule were that you can't run a user-generated content site free and clear of liability without implementing something like Google's system, then you basically just crowned Google the monopolist of user-generated content.
[39:24.640 --> 39:25.560]  That would be a real shame.
[39:25.780 --> 39:28.540]  Well, no doubt that's where they'd like to head on that particular thing.
[39:28.560 --> 39:32.980]  One thing you did say that intrigued me concerning independent artists...
[39:32.980 --> 39:48.840]  Now, I'm not saying independent artists should play this game because it's really unhealthy, but what I'm curious about is, is this something that it's like an exclusive club that only the big corporate copyright holders take part in and everybody else who also is a legitimate copyright holder,
[39:49.160 --> 39:52.720]  are they being excluded from participating in this?
[39:55.100 --> 39:55.980]  Largely, yes.
[39:56.180 --> 39:57.540]  I don't know the details.
[39:57.700 --> 40:03.340]  There is definitely some participation by independents, but even then, it's generally going to be large independents.
[40:03.860 --> 40:08.940]  Again, copyright is pervasive and it's automatic, so we are all copyright owners.
[40:09.200 --> 40:23.180]  Anyone who's ever typed anything into a keyboard, scribbled a drawing on a napkin, we don't necessarily want all of those in a database being matched against everything uploaded to the internet.
[40:23.180 --> 40:25.980]  That would be a strange and dangerous world.
[40:27.480 --> 40:29.440]  Mitch, I have a question for you.
[40:31.180 --> 40:34.900]  Is this case only, is it only binding in the Ninth Circuit?
[40:35.140 --> 40:48.540]  It's also interesting that the Ninth Circuit is where a lot of these big entertainment content companies happen to be based, which I think is a good thing that this decision went down in the Ninth Circuit, but does it not apply in all the other, the rest of the country?
[40:49.520 --> 40:55.660]  No, formally it only applies in the Ninth Circuit, which is the Pacific Coast States and a few others.
[40:57.080 --> 40:59.640]  Hopefully it'll be persuasive in the rest of the country.
[40:59.820 --> 41:02.040]  There's not, again, there's not very many cases on this.
[41:02.140 --> 41:10.700]  There's not a lot of binding precedence on this subject, so courts in other parts of the country can choose to follow this.
[41:10.880 --> 41:18.980]  Certainly companies in New York and other places can choose to follow this, but they don't necessarily have to.
[41:20.760 --> 41:49.240]  Mitch, I wonder how much power this puts back into the hands of site operators like YouTube, because now that this has been freed up to an extent, would it still behoove someone like YouTube to be overly zealous with taking things down, or do you think this will actually cause someone on the scale of YouTube or any smaller sort of content sharing sites to actually work toward protecting the fair
[41:49.240 --> 41:51.540]  use of copyrighted works?
[41:53.440 --> 41:58.920]  I actually don't think this decision changes the incentives for platforms like YouTube very much.
[41:59.480 --> 42:14.200]  I think the point of this law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, was to, as much as possible, take the platforms out of the role of copyright police or copyright judges.
[42:15.860 --> 42:21.760]  They basically follow a script, and if they follow that script, then they're out of the equation.
[42:22.020 --> 42:29.360]  Then a copyright holder can either file a lawsuit at that point or do nothing.
[42:31.640 --> 42:36.680]  So they're pretty well protected, and I don't think this is really going to change their incentives very much.
[42:36.720 --> 42:41.200]  Now, it's great, and YouTube does this sometimes, and others do this sometimes.
[42:41.200 --> 42:49.760]  It is great when companies go to bat for their users and say, that's an obvious fair use, and I'm just not going to respond to this takedown notice.
[42:49.960 --> 42:51.140]  I mean, we love to see that.
[42:51.960 --> 42:59.940]  Sometimes the company is taking a risk doing that, and it's a significant risk because the penalties for copyright infringement are crazy.
[43:00.840 --> 43:02.820]  But we like to see it when it happens.
[43:03.020 --> 43:04.840]  It can't happen all the time.
[43:06.240 --> 43:10.820]  Mitch, we're speaking with Mitch Staltz, senior staff attorney over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
[43:10.820 --> 43:13.580]  I know you're involved in many cases.
[43:13.640 --> 43:15.440]  Your organization does an incredible job.
[43:15.440 --> 43:23.460]  I sometimes wake up in a cold sweat thinking that the EFF doesn't exist and all of our rights have been completely trampled and evaporated.
[43:23.600 --> 43:27.980]  If you guys weren't around, I really wonder what the situation would be like.
[43:28.700 --> 43:29.960]  How can people help?
[43:30.060 --> 43:41.800]  How can people get involved, both in this case, in the case of innocent teenagers building clocks, in the case of ink splotches being accused of belonging to somebody else?
[43:41.800 --> 43:48.640]  There's so much insanity going on with these companies and just the way we're thinking these days.
[43:48.760 --> 43:50.360]  How can people join in these fights?
[43:53.240 --> 43:54.340]  Education is key.
[43:54.500 --> 43:57.820]  We have a lot of resources on our website and a lot of campaigns.
[43:58.860 --> 44:04.220]  We let people know when it's a good time to contact the legislators.
[44:04.220 --> 44:11.600]  We have a wonderful platform that puts people in touch with their senators and representatives by phone.
[44:12.660 --> 44:17.980]  And our work very much depends on the donations of individuals.
[44:19.300 --> 44:21.940]  This is our lifeblood.
[44:22.400 --> 44:29.220]  And we encourage people to join in and help us out and become a part of that community.
[44:29.220 --> 44:33.720]  And that's all easily accessible at EFF.org.
[44:34.940 --> 44:35.860]  Okay, great.
[44:36.140 --> 44:38.660]  Any final comments or questions from anybody?
[44:39.140 --> 44:39.820]  Mike?
[44:39.820 --> 44:42.160]  I just want to thank you again for the work you're doing.
[44:42.340 --> 44:58.020]  I hope that your optimism that this will change the actual practices of the entertainment industry is founded and that positive change for people who want to do creative things will come from this work and so much else of the work that you guys do.
[45:00.240 --> 45:00.980]  Thank you.
[45:03.660 --> 45:08.660]  Mitch, I'm sorry about this phone delay that we have here, but go ahead, Bernie.
[45:11.260 --> 45:16.940]  Mitch, I wanted to ask, these eight years of this legal fight, surely there were legal fees and expenses involved.
[45:17.140 --> 45:22.140]  Does Universal Music Corp have to pay all those legal expenses now or not?
[45:23.260 --> 45:24.900]  That's an unsettled question, actually.
[45:25.080 --> 45:29.100]  The case is not over and that has yet to be determined.
[45:30.500 --> 45:38.600]  EFF, of course, our work, again, is supported by donations from the listeners of this program and many others.
[45:39.820 --> 45:44.880]  That's where the fees come from on our side, on Universal's.
[45:44.960 --> 45:45.160]  I don't know.
[45:45.600 --> 45:46.620]  That's hard to know.
[45:48.860 --> 45:54.020]  Okay, well, thanks again, Mitch, for everything you do and everything that EFF does as well.
[45:54.100 --> 45:58.140]  I'm sure we'll be talking about other cases in the very near future.
[45:58.300 --> 46:00.300]  Hopefully, they'll be victorious ones.
[46:02.640 --> 46:05.400]  Thank you, guys, and thanks for shining a spotlight on this.
[46:06.040 --> 46:06.720]  Our pleasure.
[46:06.960 --> 46:08.360]  I just wish we didn't have to.
[46:08.520 --> 46:12.320]  I wish these things were just...
[46:12.320 --> 46:13.100]  I don't know.
[46:13.220 --> 46:17.740]  I wish people had common sense as far as issues of copyright and assumptions and things like that.
[46:17.880 --> 46:19.140]  And maybe we're less greedy.
[46:19.560 --> 46:20.720]  Yeah, that would be nice, wouldn't it?
[46:20.800 --> 46:22.240]  What would we do with our time then?
[46:22.860 --> 46:24.620]  Well, I'm sure we'd find something to complain about.
[46:24.800 --> 46:29.380]  But right now, what we're going to do with our time is try to take phone calls because we figured out how to do that.
[46:29.540 --> 46:34.200]  Even if this radio station doesn't have any phones, we're going to do it anyway.
[46:34.480 --> 46:43.700]  And the phone number is, once again, area code 331-223-WBAI.
[46:43.820 --> 46:46.060]  We did this last week, and I think it worked pretty well.
[46:46.680 --> 46:49.460]  We're going to try it again this week and see if it works.
[46:49.560 --> 46:51.640]  Kyle, you deserve the credit for setting this up.
[46:52.260 --> 46:54.920]  You want to try and explain quickly what's going on here?
[46:56.060 --> 46:56.420]  Sure.
[46:56.660 --> 46:57.460]  It's pretty simple.
[46:57.580 --> 47:04.100]  We lucked out, but we found a couple channels on the board that we could switch to that were for, I believe, a CD player we're not using right now.
[47:04.320 --> 47:09.800]  So we switched to that, and that covers two inputs or two outputs.
[47:09.800 --> 47:10.680]  So we get audio.
[47:10.900 --> 47:12.760]  That's red and yellow RCA.
[47:13.000 --> 47:21.600]  And then the white one we're using is for monitoring, or that goes back through as a microphone through our preamp here in the studio.
[47:21.600 --> 47:24.100]  So we have an extra headphone output we just run through the mic.
[47:24.260 --> 47:25.920]  And, yeah, it's just an AV cable for a camcorder.
[47:26.080 --> 47:29.820]  I hate to interrupt you, but we have a call, and this call is from Long Island, is it not?
[47:32.080 --> 47:32.920]  Hi, how are you doing?
[47:32.920 --> 47:34.820]  It's a magic jack number, so I guess I fooled you.
[47:35.400 --> 47:37.020]  Say that again, or we had trouble hearing you.
[47:37.820 --> 47:43.240]  It's a magic jack number, so it has a 516 as a prefix, but it's not.
[47:43.800 --> 47:44.640]  Oh, I see.
[47:44.780 --> 47:46.020]  Okay, yeah, you did fool us.
[47:47.020 --> 47:47.980]  I didn't mean to.
[47:48.320 --> 47:48.720]  Okay.
[47:48.980 --> 47:55.240]  I'm a novice, and I'd like to know why, I'd like to connect a Raspberry Pi with a Tor.
[47:55.540 --> 47:57.540]  How would I learn how to do that?
[47:59.180 --> 48:00.920]  I wonder what those tones are all about.
[48:01.160 --> 48:02.380]  Are you hitting touch tones, caller?
[48:03.540 --> 48:08.220]  No, it's the magic jack on the computer, so I can't answer them running.
[48:08.620 --> 48:10.280]  Wow, at least it's not us this time.
[48:10.620 --> 48:13.340]  Well, you might want to listen on the radio for the answer to your question.
[48:13.460 --> 48:14.640]  Is somebody going to answer this question?
[48:15.920 --> 48:16.320]  Mike?
[48:16.560 --> 48:28.680]  I don't know the offhand, but I do know that people have done it, and if you look around, there's a large Raspberry Pi community, and if you look through that, you should get the answer.
[48:28.820 --> 48:30.820]  That was not very good on my part.
[48:31.060 --> 48:32.420]  Yeah, well, it is a good answer.
[48:32.520 --> 48:33.840]  No, that's a fantastic answer, Mike.
[48:33.980 --> 48:50.320]  And the real point is these computers are getting cheaper and cheaper, and there's amazing projects going on with them, and there is a lot of development, a lot of active development in creating operating systems that I dare say are, their sole purpose is for running Tor.
[48:50.380 --> 48:52.700]  So the stuff is out there, and there are a lot of possibilities.
[48:52.880 --> 48:58.860]  I mean, the fun of this technology is that it's very inexpensive, and you can explore and learn how it works.
[48:59.020 --> 49:07.380]  It's very hard to permanently break it, but even if you do succeed in permanently breaking it, you can just get another one, and maybe you can turn it into a clock.
[49:07.520 --> 49:10.380]  Yeah, the Raspberry Pi itself was created as an educational tool.
[49:10.540 --> 49:16.360]  It's meant to be very simple to, well, relatively simple to set up and to use and to tweak to your satisfaction.
[49:16.620 --> 49:18.200]  So there's a huge community out there.
[49:18.320 --> 49:23.520]  I think if you throw out some web searches for Raspberry Pi and Tor, you will find a whole lot of things people have already done that you can follow.
[49:23.680 --> 49:25.860]  And the real beauty is you can pop the SD cards in and out.
[49:25.940 --> 49:30.840]  So you can have one OS on one SD card, then switch it and you have a different operating system on another SD card.
[49:30.980 --> 49:31.720]  There's a lot of...
[49:31.720 --> 49:32.620]  It's just built for that.
[49:32.740 --> 49:34.900]  So good to hear you doing it and good luck finding stuff.
[49:35.060 --> 49:36.080]  And we have another call.
[49:36.220 --> 49:39.080]  The phone number 331-223-WBAI.
[49:39.080 --> 49:40.840]  Only works for our show, by the way.
[49:41.100 --> 49:42.820]  So don't try calling after eight o'clock.
[49:42.940 --> 49:43.500]  Good evening, caller.
[49:43.620 --> 49:44.340]  You're on the air.
[49:46.520 --> 49:46.880]  Yeah.
[49:47.620 --> 49:48.400]  What's on your mind?
[49:48.400 --> 49:48.680]  Good evening.
[49:51.420 --> 50:04.300]  I'm trying to get an idea about working with the poor and also trying to identify a...
[50:06.360 --> 50:07.340]  Speak up, please.
[50:09.800 --> 50:10.440]  Hello?
[50:12.680 --> 50:14.460]  Hey, folks, you got to speak up.
[50:14.460 --> 50:17.940]  And this is kind of a tenuous connection.
[50:18.120 --> 50:22.480]  So we need to raise the volume to the max.
[50:22.520 --> 50:25.500]  And if you don't speak loudly, we won't be able to hear you at all.
[50:27.290 --> 50:30.460]  Again, 331-223-WBAI is our phone number.
[50:31.280 --> 50:33.280]  We only have one line incoming.
[50:33.560 --> 50:36.980]  And if you don't get through, you might get voicemail or something like that.
[50:37.100 --> 50:41.320]  Hang up and call right back and we'll be sure and try and take your phone call on the air.
[50:42.140 --> 50:43.780]  331-223-WBAI.
[50:43.900 --> 50:50.180]  Again, this is something that's not supposed to work, but it does because we were able to piece it together.
[50:50.280 --> 50:51.000]  Bernie, are you still there?
[50:52.960 --> 50:53.780]  I'm still here.
[50:54.020 --> 50:57.280]  I think that guy might have been on his cell phone and he has lost his connection.
[50:57.460 --> 50:58.360]  But this is great.
[50:58.460 --> 51:00.340]  We've had like all these people on the phone tonight.
[51:00.520 --> 51:03.780]  And I wish all the producers could do that with all the shows.
[51:03.920 --> 51:04.980]  That would be really nice.
[51:05.180 --> 51:05.420]  All right.
[51:05.440 --> 51:06.360]  We have another phone call.
[51:06.460 --> 51:07.020]  Good evening, caller.
[51:07.040 --> 51:07.820]  You're on the air.
[51:09.060 --> 51:09.660]  Hello.
[51:10.140 --> 51:10.600]  How are you?
[51:10.920 --> 51:11.300]  Pretty good.
[51:11.340 --> 51:11.700]  How are you?
[51:12.260 --> 51:13.680]  I'm doing well, thanks.
[51:14.200 --> 51:17.210]  I actually want to... Hi.
[51:17.500 --> 51:23.580]  I actually want to talk about an experience that I had with an organization.
[51:24.640 --> 51:32.780]  We had a silly little thing in a very closed industry trade group in our little magazine.
[51:33.040 --> 51:36.380]  It was a little quotes thing that somebody put it out.
[51:36.840 --> 51:44.260]  And I think that... And the organization was sued for like $10,000 because of copyright infringement.
[51:44.580 --> 51:45.240]  Wow.
[51:46.100 --> 51:47.210]  That's awful.
[51:47.380 --> 52:01.340]  And what happened was it was... There was... It's a revenue opportunity for people to go out and hunt these things down and then threaten to sue you.
[52:01.640 --> 52:08.560]  And the organization wound up paying $10,000 because they had deep pockets and they didn't...
[52:08.560 --> 52:10.710]  You know, they didn't know what else really to do.
[52:11.740 --> 52:13.820]  And they had done something wrong, but they didn't know.
[52:13.960 --> 52:14.820]  You know, they didn't realize it.
[52:15.040 --> 52:15.320]  Yeah.
[52:15.420 --> 52:17.680]  That's very much like the situation that happened with our ink splotch.
[52:18.120 --> 52:23.640]  There is this huge predatory business model that's very profitable to do where you just threaten people and hope they pay you off.
[52:23.640 --> 52:23.900]  Yeah.
[52:24.040 --> 52:28.710]  If they're counting on catching your organization, somebody there in the right moment, right?
[52:28.800 --> 52:33.260]  When they're not thinking about it quite with the guard up in the right way.
[52:33.460 --> 52:36.160]  And it presents itself as a very serious thing.
[52:36.160 --> 52:38.340]  And all of a sudden these organizations are on the ropes.
[52:38.480 --> 52:41.460]  They're starting to think liabilities and what do we do and how do we... Yeah.
[52:41.540 --> 52:42.800]  And then it's about survival.
[52:42.800 --> 52:46.780]  They end up taking the kind of quick way out, which ends up being a bit of a hustle.
[52:47.540 --> 52:47.680]  Yeah.
[52:47.840 --> 52:48.460]  This is why I'm...
[52:48.460 --> 52:53.440]  Well, it is profitable to the person who is bringing the challenge.
[52:53.940 --> 52:58.300]  This is why I'm slightly pessimistic about the good news that we talked about before.
[52:58.710 --> 53:04.020]  The organization that's suing you doesn't have to be legally right.
[53:04.160 --> 53:09.960]  They just have to... And I assume if your organization has $10,000, they also spend a few minutes talking to a lawyer.
[53:10.100 --> 53:13.210]  And I'm sure what the lawyer said is, yeah, we can defend this.
[53:13.340 --> 53:17.420]  Maybe we can win, but it's going to cost you more than $10,000 in legal fees to do so.
[53:18.060 --> 53:24.200]  And the organization that is suing knows exactly how much you're going to spend on lawyers.
[53:24.360 --> 53:29.040]  They can ask you for 80% of that and get it so much of the time.
[53:29.960 --> 53:32.460]  Something needs to change, and I wish I knew what it was.
[53:33.580 --> 53:33.780]  Yep.
[53:34.180 --> 53:35.680]  So anyway, thank you for taking my call.
[53:35.760 --> 53:35.980]  All right.
[53:36.080 --> 53:37.260]  Thanks for your call.
[53:37.480 --> 53:38.280]  Good hearing from you.
[53:39.200 --> 53:44.900]  Again, 331-223-WBAI is our temporary phone number for Off the Hook.
[53:45.740 --> 53:50.600]  I think Kyle's working really well, considering what we have, it's rigged up here.
[53:50.880 --> 53:52.260]  Yeah, I'm already thinking of revisions.
[53:52.460 --> 54:01.940]  Like, I would take this line that's operating the mic, and there are splitters that could take it from mono to stereo, so it just puts mono in both right and left.
[54:02.040 --> 54:05.300]  Because it's coming through just in my right channel.
[54:05.320 --> 54:06.420]  I'm getting it in both ears.
[54:06.660 --> 54:06.980]  You're getting it in both.
[54:06.980 --> 54:07.840]  Okay, maybe it's fine.
[54:07.980 --> 54:09.200]  Maybe, okay, don't mess with it.
[54:09.320 --> 54:10.180]  Well, it's not broken.
[54:10.400 --> 54:12.380]  Yeah, but it might be if I'm the only one getting that.
[54:12.680 --> 54:13.160]  All right, all right.
[54:13.200 --> 54:13.920]  As long as we're happy.
[54:14.380 --> 54:16.380]  Maybe you have special mono headphones.
[54:16.760 --> 54:17.460]  I might.
[54:17.900 --> 54:19.460]  I might just have mono hearing.
[54:19.940 --> 54:23.440]  Again, 331-223-9224.
[54:23.680 --> 54:26.740]  331-223-WBAI is our temporary phone number.
[54:26.860 --> 54:31.180]  It goes out of service at 8 o'clock and just about five minutes, maybe six minutes.
[54:31.680 --> 54:41.210]  But this is a chance for you to be heard on the air, despite the fact that we have no working phone lines here at WBAI, except for the one that Bernie is currently occupying right now.
[54:43.280 --> 54:44.840]  Yes, and you need more.
[54:45.900 --> 54:46.340]  Okay.
[54:47.260 --> 54:49.210]  Yes, waiting for the phone to ring.
[54:49.340 --> 54:56.740]  And I know this sometimes takes a little while because, like I said, we only have one line and other people get transferred into voicemail oblivion.
[54:56.940 --> 54:59.660]  So again, 331-223-9224.
[54:59.920 --> 55:05.210]  But just to address a couple of the early callers, I'm very happy to hear about the interest in Tor and setting that up.
[55:05.300 --> 55:13.860]  And if anyone is interested in Tor, the Onion Router, T-O-R, throw out some web searches because there are plenty of really good tutorials on getting yourself started with it.
[55:13.980 --> 55:16.240]  And you don't have to be all that technical, actually, to get it going.
[55:16.480 --> 55:21.820]  Yeah, actually, to add to that, the operating system I was thinking of that involved Tor is called Tails.
[55:22.120 --> 55:28.360]  And that's something you could run that is basically a private or more or less a secure operating system.
[55:28.360 --> 55:29.800]  That's the goal or aim of the project.
[55:30.020 --> 55:31.900]  So check those things out and get involved.
[55:32.020 --> 55:32.760]  Build stuff for yourself.
[55:32.940 --> 55:37.700]  There are so many tools out there that are free and really fun to implement.
[55:38.760 --> 55:42.820]  Yeah, a story that we didn't even have time to get into because there's just so much going on in the world.
[55:42.840 --> 55:48.580]  But there's libraries that are installing Tor and libraries that are being told not to install Tor.
[55:48.620 --> 55:51.380]  And there's just a lot going on.
[55:51.520 --> 55:53.260]  And it's all really fascinating.
[55:53.500 --> 55:54.780]  Here's a call from New Jersey.
[55:54.920 --> 55:55.260]  Good evening.
[55:55.260 --> 55:56.420]  You're on the air.
[56:00.250 --> 56:00.700]  Hello?
[56:00.700 --> 56:02.860]  Are you freaked out because I know where you're calling from?
[56:04.880 --> 56:05.280]  Okay.
[56:05.660 --> 56:06.710]  I guess so.
[56:06.800 --> 56:07.620]  They hung up.
[56:08.120 --> 56:09.580]  We only have about a minute.
[56:09.780 --> 56:15.180]  So if anybody wants to call in, 331-223-WBAI is the phone number.
[56:15.180 --> 56:17.160]  You have about one minute to go.
[56:18.360 --> 56:19.560]  And you can write to us, too.
[56:19.560 --> 56:24.710]  O-T-H at 2600.com is our email address.
[56:24.900 --> 56:26.120]  Let's take this call.
[56:26.940 --> 56:27.700]  Good evening.
[56:27.710 --> 56:29.710]  You're on the air, and you're calling from Pennsylvania.
[56:31.060 --> 56:31.800]  That it is.
[56:31.940 --> 56:32.800]  And I'm on the train.
[56:33.520 --> 56:37.240]  I'm giving a call about the person asking about bread, very high, I believe.
[56:37.260 --> 56:37.900]  Wow, listen to that.
[56:37.940 --> 56:38.600]  He's on a train.
[56:38.760 --> 56:39.280]  That's so cool.
[56:40.320 --> 56:40.520]  Yeah.
[56:40.780 --> 56:45.440]  Tor onion or onion pie was one of the projects for that.
[56:46.560 --> 56:47.680]  It's a couple of different things.
[56:47.820 --> 56:51.660]  You have the Tor project, which is an acronym, the onion router.
[56:51.940 --> 56:55.780]  And then the hardware project that we were talking about is the Raspberry Pi.
[56:56.020 --> 57:03.800]  It's basically around 800 megahertz computer that is about the size of a credit card, maybe a little bit bigger.
[57:04.210 --> 57:11.240]  And you can do all kinds of projects with input and output and analog inputs as well, digital, everything.
[57:11.440 --> 57:13.300]  All kinds of stuff you need for projects.
[57:14.270 --> 57:15.140]  And projects.
[57:15.140 --> 57:16.560]  That's what we're working on right now.
[57:16.760 --> 57:21.300]  We're building new things at the radio station and trying to get this place a ship shape.
[57:21.500 --> 57:25.160]  We'll be back next week with our special Maker Faire pre-show.
[57:25.880 --> 57:30.210]  And again, you can write to us, OTH at 2600.com.
[57:30.960 --> 57:32.320]  We'd love to hear from you.
[57:32.580 --> 57:33.980]  Stay tuned for the personal computer show.
[57:34.120 --> 57:35.300]  This is Emmanuel for Off the Hook.
[57:35.300 --> 57:38.360]  Have a good night and stay busy.
[57:39.780 --> 57:45.000]  Machines, machines, they keep right on going.
[57:45.560 --> 57:51.180]  Machines, machines, they keep right on going.
[58:09.100 --> 58:14.560]  Machines, machines, they keep right on moving.
[58:15.240 --> 58:20.700]  Machines, machines, they keep right on moving.
[58:20.700 --> 58:27.060]  Well, I've got to find a place to rest my head.
[58:27.480 --> 58:33.200]  Machines, he smile at me and say, I'm gonna be all dead.
[58:33.620 --> 58:36.120]  Oh yeah, oh yeah.
[58:51.010 --> 58:56.790]  Machines, machines, we made them to serve us.
[58:56.790 --> 59:02.970]  Machines, machines, machines, machines, we built them to serve us.
[59:03.150 --> 59:08.830]  But till the day, well, I'm buried in my grave.
[59:09.430 --> 59:15.210]  Yes, right until that day, I know I'm gonna be a slave.
[59:15.210 --> 59:20.710]  A slave, a slave, a slave, a slave.
[59:20.710 --> 59:25.950]  Machines, machines, they keep right on moving.